Witness: Moussaoui wasn't top '01 threat

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A former senior FBI counterterrorism official testified Tuesday that the August 2001 arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui never rose to a heightened alert because federal law enforcement was besieged by threats to America that summer, and it was unclear what Moussaoui was doing in the United States.

Michael Rolince was brought into Moussaoui's sentencing trial by prosecutors trying to deflect the damage done by a Minnesota FBI agent who told the jury Monday that FBI headquarters in Washington repeatedly snubbed his efforts to obtain search warrants and learn more about the Al Qaeda-linked militant who was training on passenger jet simulators.

Rolince said the FBI was investigating up to 70 threats of potential terrorist attacks in the United States that August, when Moussaoui was arrested in Minneapolis. He said at least 100 buildings and structures in New York and Washington were viewed as "logical targets" for terrorists.

"There was concern throughout the law-enforcement community, and we certainly anticipated an attack," Rolince said.

He characterized Moussaoui's arrest as one of those investigations but suggested that it never produced enough details for the FBI to request search warrants to open his belongings. It would have been easier just to have him deported, Rolince said.

In hindsight, Rolince said, had Moussaoui's possessions been searched the FBI might have turned up enough leads to identify some of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers and perhaps prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But with so much going on that summer, he said, the Moussaoui matter was not deemed a top priority. He said he had only two brief conversations about the Moussaoui case, and he never was given a copy of a lengthy memo from the FBI field office in Minneapolis outlining the arrest and highlighting the need for search warrants.

Rolince said there just was not enough evidence in the three weeks before the Sept. 11 attack to believe Moussaoui was part of any large suicide hijacking mission.

"Agent Samit's hunches and suspicions were one thing," Rolince said. "What we knew was something else."

The government is trying to show that had Moussaoui cooperated, the bureau could have prevented the attacks. The defense hopes to persuade the jury that the FBI was in such bureaucratic disarray that it was its own fault that Moussaoui never was fully investigated.

The prosecution wants to connect Moussaoui with the loss of lives on Sept. 11 and have him sentenced to death. The defense wants a term of life in prison.

Rolince, a 31-year FBI veteran who retired in October, testified that he had only two brief discussions with FBI Supervisor David Frasca about Moussaoui's arrest, describing them as chats in the hallway. In the end, Rolince said, he approved a request from Samit to accompany Moussaoui on his deportation flight back to Europe, where the belongings could be opened and inspected at the airport there.